The present invention generally relates to multimedia data reception, processing, routing, storage, and access. More specifically, the invention relates to an apparatus and a method for multimedia data reception, processing (e.g. capturing, encoding), routing, storage, and access using a set-top box connected to a multimedia signal source and a web user interface. Furthermore, the invention also relates to a web synchronization of an encoded multimedia stream from the set-top box, wherein the set-top box is capable of generating the encoded multimedia data stream from the multimedia signal source
Multimedia data upload and access services, such as YouTube, has reached an iconic cultural status on the Internet today. Many people utilize a video footage portal service to share their favorite videos with others or to search existing footages for entertainment or educational purposes. Nevertheless, the current process of uploading or sharing information to a video footage portal service typically requires a manual human intervention to capture, encode, upload, and/or configure a multimedia file using a personal computer (PC) or another PC-like device such as an Internet-protocol-capable cellular phone. Typically, the manual human intervention also requires one or more multimedia uploading and/or editing software and a manual user interaction with the video footage portal service itself. Although highly tech-savvy people who exhibit an advanced level of computer utilizations dexterously use a video footage portal service for file upload and sharing, a large portion of Internet users who feel uncomfortable tweaking with a variety of multimedia software tools or web uploading interfaces are still reluctant to use video footage portal services comfortably for prevalent uploading or sharing of multimedia information. A consumer reluctance to become dexterous or “power users” of video footage portal services is especially pervasive for an older age group such as the baby boomers, who are typically computer literate enough to search YouTube, but do not feel very comfortable in becoming power users for such services.
Furthermore, many users, regardless of their age or computer literacy, find manual human interventions for uploading a video footage quite cumbersome and annoying. For example, if a user wants to upload a ten-minute video footage of a family gathering, it typically requires an uplink to a computer, which may use a software to convert the ten-minute video footage into a more convenient format (avi, MPEG, and etc.) for an uploading to YouTube. The user may also have to spend some time on an editing software to clip a particular portion of the ten-minute video footage prior to uploading. Then, for the actual uploading of the video footage, the user has to log into YouTube and follow uploading procedures, all of which require some degree of manual human intervention and supervision. Therefore, a large number of Internet users may find the conventional multimedia data encoding, conversion, and/or uploading processes too cumbersome to make video footage portal services as their intuitive choice for everyday personal multimedia data archiving or sharing.
Therefore, it may be highly advantageous to devise an apparatus and a method which largely automates multimedia data reception, processing (e.g. capturing, encoding), routing, storage, and access. Furthermore, it may be also advantageous to perform a seamless and automated multimedia data encoding, routing, and storage of a received multimedia signal (i.e. received by a cable line, a satellite dish, and/or an ATSC airwave antenna) to a particular web service (e.g. a video footage portal service), a device (e.g. an iPod), and/or a computing platform (e.g. a cloud computing platform) without constraining this automation to a provider-specific infrastructure, equipment, and/or service (e.g. infrastructure, equipment, and/or service specific and limited to a particular cable company, a satellite broadcast company, or an airwave broadcast company.). In addition, it may also be advantageous to devise an apparatus and a method to retrieve an automatically-stored multimedia signal routed from a set-top box to a web service or a cloud-computing server to a user connected anywhere on a wide-area network or a local-area network without having a service provider-specific constraints, such as using a particular multimedia data recording plan supported by a provider-specific infrastructure and equipment.